Black Swan

Dozens of times per day, we all interact with intelligent machines that are constantly learning from the wealth of data now available to them. These machines, from smart phones to talking robots to self-driving cars, are remaking the world in the twenty first century in the same way that the Industrial Revolution remade the world in the...

Houses of Power is the result of Simon Thurley's thirty years of research, picking through architectural digs, and examining financial accounts, original plans and drawings to reconstruct the great Tudor houses and understand how these monarchs shaped their lives.________What was it like to live as a royal Tudor?Why were their residences built as...

Matthieu Zela has lived his life well. In fact, he's lived several lives well. Because Matthieu Zela's life is characterised by one amazing fact: his body stopped ageing before the end of the eighteenth century.Starting in 1758, a young Matthieu flees Paris after witnessing his mother's brutal murder. His only companions are his younger brother...

Just days before her sister plunged to her death, Jules ignored her call.Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules must return to her sister's house to care for her daughter, and to face the mystery of Nel's death.But Jules is afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of this small town that is drowning in secrecy . . .And...

You are accused of a crime. Who would you rather determined your fate - a human or an algorithm?An algorithm is more consistent and less prone to error of judgement. Yet a human can look you in the eye before passing sentence.Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important...

Pop music's a simple pleasure. Is it catchy? Can you dance to it? Do you fancy the singer?But what's fascinating about pop is our relationship with it. David Hepworth is interested in the human side of pop. He's interested in how people make the stuff and, more importantly, what it means to us.In this collection of essays written throughout his...